MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – Suspected drug hitmen have abducted the mayor of a tourist town near Mexico’s northern city of Monterrey in the latest surge in drug violence threatening to undermine industry and scare off investors.

Gunmen with automatic weapons burst into Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos’ home on Sunday in Santiago, a colonial-era town that is a popular weekend destination for residents of nearby Monterrey, police and officials said.

“He was led out of his house by armed men. He wasn’t beaten, he wasn’t hand-cuffed or tied up,” Alejandro Garza, attorney general of Nuevo Leon state, which includes Monterrey and Santiago, told a news conference.

Nuevo Leon Governor Rodrigo Medina said Cavazos was probably targeted for his efforts to clean up Santiago’s corrupt police force. The mayor’s family has not received any ransom demands.

The abduction follows a spike in violence over the weekend in northern Mexico, where rival gangs are battling for control of lucrative drug smuggling routes into the United States.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon has been defending his crackdown on drugs at home and abroad as the death toll in his 3-1/2-year campaign surpassed 28,000 people and cartels have ratcheted up attacks against police and public officials.

“What is happening in reality is that we are imposing order where there was none. So if you see dust, it is because we are cleaning the house,” Calderon wrote in an op-ed in the French newspaper Le Monde on Monday.

Yet there are few signs the cartels are ready to back down.

Over the weekend, drug gangs set up over 40 roadblocks in Monterrey, parking trucks, cars and even an ambulance across roads in a bid to derail army anti-drug operations.

Assailants also threw grenades at offices of Televisa, Mexico’s biggest broadcaster in Monterrey and in Tamaulipas state to the east. No major injuries were reported.

Since the beginning of the year, Monterrey and nearby towns like Santiago have been sucked into a bloody turf war between theGulf cartel and a spinoff group called Zetas.

The surge in violence in Monterrey, Mexico’s most affluent city and home to some of the country’s biggest companies such as global cement maker Cemex, is a major worry as foreign companies question the safety of doing business there.

Update:

MONTERREY, Mexico, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Mexican security forces found the body of a mayor near Mexico’s northern industrial city of Monterrey on Wednesday, days after he was abducted by drug hitmen, Mexican media said.

Monterrey-based daily El Norte and local TV networks said Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of the town Santiago on the outskirts of Monterrey, was found bound and dumped on a rural road.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Police said Wednesday they found the body of a mayor who was kidnapped in northern Mexico earlier this week — the fifth mayor presumed to have been killed by traffickers this year in the country’s bloody drug wars.

Authorities in Nuevo Leon state, across the border from the southwest US state of Texas, said the bound and gagged body of Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, was found dumped on a road outside the town of some 35,000 people.

President Felipe Calderon said in a statement Wednesday that Cavazos’s murder “outrages us and obligates us to redouble our efforts in the fight against cowardly criminals who wage war against citizens.”

Officials said Cavazos, who was known for his tough stance against organized crime, had been forced from his home by armed men wearing out-of-date federal police uniforms. No formal ransom demand had been issued for Cavazos.

His bodyguard, the only witness to the kidnapping, was found bruised but otherwise unhurt on a road on the outskirts of town shortly after the abduction, after being beaten and locked in the trunk of a car.

Mexico has been plagued in recent years by rampant violence blamed on drug gangs fighting for control of lucrative trafficking routes.

Violence has surged particularly in northern border areas, including Nuevo Leon and around its capital and business hub of Monterrey, as the Gulf gang and its former the hitmen, the Zetas, face off.

More than 28,000 people have died in suspected drug violence since the end of 2006, when Calderon launched a controversial military crackdown on organized crime.

MONTERREY, Mexico, Aug 18 (Reuters) – Mexican security forces found the body of a mayor near Mexico’s northern industrial city of

Mayor Edelmiro Cavazos

Monterrey on Wednesday, days after he was abducted by drug hitmen, Mexican media said.

Monterrey-based daily El Norte and local TV networks said Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of the town Santiago on the outskirts of Monterrey, was found bound and dumped on a rural road.

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – Police said Wednesday they found the body of a mayor who was kidnapped in northern Mexico earlier this week — the fifth mayor presumed to have been killed by traffickers this year in the country’s bloody drug wars.

Authorities in Nuevo Leon state, across the border from the southwest US state of Texas, said the bound and gagged body of Edelmiro Cavazos, mayor of Santiago, was found dumped on a road outside the town of some 35,000 people.

President Felipe Calderon said in a statement Wednesday that Cavazos’s murder “outrages us and obligates us to redouble our efforts in the fight against cowardly criminals who wage war against citizens.”

Officials said Cavazos, who was known for his tough stance against organized crime, had been forced from his home by armed men wearing out-of-date federal police uniforms. No formal ransom demand had been issued for Cavazos.

His bodyguard, the only witness to the kidnapping, was found bruised but otherwise unhurt on a road on the outskirts of town shortly after the abduction, after being beaten and locked in the trunk of a car.

Mexico has been plagued in recent years by rampant violence blamed on drug gangs fighting for control of lucrative trafficking routes.

Violence has surged particularly in northern border areas, including Nuevo Leon and around its capital and business hub of Monterrey, as the Gulf gang and its former the hitmen, the Zetas, face off.

More than 28,000 people have died in suspected drug violence since the end of 2006, when Calderon launched a controversial military crackdown on organized crime.